


But in my dreams I see you dancing

by Marayanna



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: "three times Yeza wakes up and Veth isn't beside him and the fourth time she still isn't", Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I would like to thank Matt here for creating such a likable husband we don't get many of those, alternative title:, and he loves her anyway, but it's okay he got used to it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-29 00:01:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18767038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marayanna/pseuds/Marayanna
Summary: “It’s okay. I’ll join you” he pulls blankets and pillows from the bed, throwing them on the floor. He curls beside her without another word, his sore limbs grateful for any place to rest, be it a hard floor or not. Veth tenses, and then relaxes, and that’s when Yeza lets his eyes fall shut and sleep claim him, satisfied.





	But in my dreams I see you dancing

When he wakes up, she’s not beside him.

Yeza sits up, confused and only half awake. The moon is almost full, the light illuminating his room well enough to see without any trouble. He stares at the place where Veth was laying just a few hours ago, the sheets shill rumpled, the pillow still flattened. Empty space in her shape. 

He stands up groggily, putting on a tunic hastily thrown on the floor the night before. Veth is nowhere in the room, so he makes his way out.

He finds her by the kitchen table, playing with buttons and glass balls she likes to collect. Ever since the two of them got close, these little things started accumulating in Yeza’s house, colorful trinkets he likes having around because they remind him of her. Sticks and ribbons. Forks and small stones. Buttons.

She’s playing with them now, jerkily, wound up so tight she looks like she’s about to snap or bolt away any second. Her body screams of nervousness she tries to keep bottled up, even though she never quite succeeds.

“What are you doing?” he asks, confused, and she jumps in surprise, balls and buttons scattering everywhere. She shoots him a glance like a rabbit caught in the underbrush, desperately looking for a way out. He knows that look, sees it often when the village thugs are loud and brass, when village elders are void of patience and full of scathing remarks. Yes, it’s a look she wears often, but for a life of him he can’t understand why would she do so _now_.

Veth hugs herself, hunching down as much as possible, as if trying to take less space in the room, in the world.

“I wasn’t sure if you-“ she trips over her words, bits her lip, tries again. “Wasn’t sure if you wanted me here. To stay, I mean. So, I thought I’d leave. But then I wasn’t _sure_ if you wanted me to leave, so I just…” and she gestures desperately to the kitchen, to buttons and glass balls, a helpless kind of gesture trying to explain what the words can’t.

And he understands everything that she’s not saying anyway. He understands and it _stings_ , just the tiniest bit. It stings that she thought he would want her gone after their night together, as if he’s one of those men who are nice and kind until they get what they want from a girl, and then discard her afterwards. It stings, but he thinks of the village thugs an merciless elders. He knows it’s not her fault she feels like this.

Trust takes time. And it’s okay because he can wait.

He goes to the table and puts his arms around her.

“I didn’t want you to leave. I _don’t_ want you to leave” he is a scientist, not a poet. He doesn’t know his ways with words at all. But then again, neither does Veth, and yet they always find a way to understand each other somehow.

“I want to eat breakfast together in the morning, and then go to the market so we can find those vials we need for the next experiment. I want to paint the walls in the living room in purple dots, just like you wanted. I want to eat those peppermint cookies you are the best at making. I want you to stay with me. If you want”

He doesn’t know when she starts crying, only that by the time he finishes talking there is a distinct wetness on his chest where her face is pressed. And when the sobs start, he holds her through them, too.

*

When he wakes up, she’s not beside him.

For a few, blessed moments, he doesn’t remember what happened.  It’s still very early and his wife had an early start today, that’s all. Maybe she started some experiment already, or maybe their little son needed something and now they are making breakfast, singing silly songs and laughing. And Yeza will get up, and Veth will greet him, and their day together will start, one of many ahead of them.

Except it’s not true. Except Veth is dead.

He stares at the space on the bed where his wife should be, and his vision becomes blurry with tears. He lets them flow freely, too numb to move, too numb to think. He doesn’t sob, doesn’t make a sound. He just stares blankly, and the tears fall, and the world turns towards morning.

And then, when the first rays of sunshine peak over the horizon, he wipes his eyes and gets up. His wife is dead. He’s not sure if he’ll ever really wrap his head around it, if he’ll ever find his place in the world without her.

It doesn’t _matter_.

Because she might be gone, but her death wasn’t pointless. She saved Luke, she gave them chance to run away from the horror that will haunt their dreams for long, long months to come. She was clever and fast and brave, and now she’s _gone_ , but Yeza will make god damn sure that her sacrifice was not in vain.

Luke will be safe. The war is on the horizon and goblin monsters are running in their forests and it doesn’t _matter_ because there is not a single thing Yeza won’t do to protect his son.

*

She’s not beside him.

It’s not the first thing he notices.

He switches from an uneasy sleep to a full consciousness in a snap, adrenaline and fear already pumping through his veins. Ready for hands to grab him, to shove him, to gag and blindfold him.

None of it comes.

The first thing he actually notices, once the pumping in his ears calms down a bit, is that he’s not in the cold prison cell anymore. The next thing he notices, is that he’s laying in the soft bed instead, tucked in lovingly, in a way he hadn’t been tucked in since his wife-

It’s the third thing he notices, that she’s not beside him.

And it’s strange, noticing it, because it’s been a long time since he escaped with Luke from the goblin village. And time may not heal completely, but it definitely dulls the pain. That, and his work kees him in the lab, so he doesn’t sleep in his own bed that much anyway. He tries to pretend it’s not on purpose.

But now he’s awake and she’s not here, and _knows_ it is not how it should be, because…

Because, gods above, she didn’t die after all, did she?

It makes his head spin again, even though it’s hours after the revelation. She survived. All this time, she was not dead but taken away. Tormented, tortured, yes. Scared, of course. Changed. But _alive_.

She is a mercenary now, travels with a group of people so strange and colorful they seem as if they jumped straight from a children’s adventure book, and as surprising as it might be, she seems to fit right in.

They call her Nott.

And that isn’t the biggest change about her, not even close. Saying that she is different than she was before is a _comical_ understatement. There are so many things he doesn’t know about her now, so many new ticks and habits. But it would be foolish to believe that _he_ isn’t different too, after everything that he’s been through. They went through so much, both of them, and they have so many long night talks ahead of them, so much of discovering each other anew. It’s going to be scary, undoubtedly, but he wants to believe that it’s going to be exciting as well. Theirs is a miracle not many receive, and he is determined not to let it slip through his fingers.

But he’s awake and she’s not beside him.

He looks around the room and his eyes land on a vaguely Veth-shaped bundle on the floor, snoring softly. He walks up to her, his footfalls soft in the darkness, and puts a hand on her shoulder.

She tenses in surprise, but it’s not a surprise of a cornered animal that he got used to. Her hand moves beneath her pillow and with a shock he realizes that she’s got a dagger hidden there. She’s ready to pounce, ready to fight.

He swallows sudden taste of fear. Right. Discovering anew.

“It’s okay, it’s just me” he says, as calmly as he can. A second passes, then another, and then she relaxes, finally deciding that there’s no threat. That _Yeza_ is no threat.

“Why are you on the floor?” he asks, because everything else – his fears, her daggers – can wait until morning. _This_ can’t.

“It weirdly feels better?” her voice is small, an undercurrent of _something_ beneath it, something hopeful but fragile. “But I also wanted to give you your space”

And Yeza can’t help but think of the night so many years ago, of buttons scattering on the kitchen table. She’s not tripping over her words like she did back then, when she was unsure herself of what it was that she wanted to say. No, now she speaks clearly, and yet he can’t help but feel as if she’s pulling back, trying to hide meanings, weighting her words so that she doesn’t say too much, too little, too _something_.

And to Yeza it all seems pointless somehow, since he can easily understand everything she’s not saying, anyway.

“It’s okay. I’ll join you” he pulls blankets and pillows from the bed, throwing them on the floor. He curls beside her without another word, his sore limbs grateful for any place to rest, be it a hard floor or not. Veth tenses, and then relaxes, and that’s when Yeza lets his eyes fall shut and sleep claim him, satisfied.

*

-not beside him.

Yeza sighs, deeply, and gets out of bed.

Their reunion was short lived, forced to end by the world that stubbornly refused to stop and let them catch their breath. There is a war going on, and there are plans and intrigues that make Yeza’s  head spin, there are games with stakes so high he can’t even begin to grasp them. And then there’s his wife, right in the middle of it all.

It’s both impressive and frightening. She’s brave and strong and dazzling, and million other things he can only look at in wonder, but she could also be in a mortal danger this very moment and it makes his insides squirm. He doesn’t know much about their new assignment, but he knows what kind of jobs the hotheaded adventurers get hired for. The dirty ones. The helpless ones. Mercenary groups passed through their village sometimes, and they always told the scariest stories, had the strangest scars.

But they _need_ that job, and he trusts Veth – or Nott, or whatever else she wishes to be called because at the end of the day it doesn’t matter to him at all – he trusts his _wife_ to come back to him. And as long as she will, he can wait. He will worry and overthink and stress, but he will wait. She _will_ come back, and they will spend some precious days together, and then there will be another job and he will wait again if that’s how it has to be.

Their future is uncertain, filled with many more lonely mornings. But now there is hope for a happy ending at the end of it all, happy ending for all of those innocent people involved in a war they want nothing to do with, but also a happy ending for him, Yeza, personally. There is hope for warm, sunny mornings with Luke waking them up by jumping on their bed, for soft _goodmornings_ , for kitchen being filled with smell of pancakes and cocoa and the laugher of the family of three.

And for that, he can wait.


End file.
